THIRTV-FIVE YEARS IN THE EAST. .C7 



cures, among which was that of the Emir himself, whom 

 I recovered from a gastric-bilious fever. The unfortunate 

 operation was the extraction of a stone from the bladder ; 

 and the proverb is true, which says — " Non est in medico 

 semper relevetur ut aeger, interdum docta plus valet arte 

 malum." I had a presentiment on that occasion that I should 

 not succeed in the operation ; the patient was already 

 so weakened and enervated, that I felt no wish to 

 operate on him, and yielded only to the request of the 

 minister, who told me that the student was about to 

 kill himself in despair, in case I persisted in my refusal. 

 To secure myself from reproach, should the operation happen 

 to fail, I caused a document to be drawn up, with the 

 signatures of the patient and his brother, declaring me 

 not be responsible for the result of the operation, as I under- 

 took it only because they insisted on my doing so. 

 This document was legalised by the seals of the Emir 

 minister, and judge. I performed the operation in the 

 presence of several witnesses, whom I invited for the 

 purpose, among whom there were several hakims. The 

 extraction of the stone was performed in one of the 

 apartments of the high college. Fortunately I used the 

 apparatus altus, or I should certainly not have been 

 able to extract it. The patient behaved very quietly 

 during the operation, which was more than I had ex- 

 pected, and said nothing but " Ya Allah I Ya Allah I " 

 ( O God ! O God ! ) To my grief, and to the surprise 

 of all present, the stone was found to be immoveable, 

 having grown into the substance of the bladder, in such 

 a manner that I have never seen or heard of a similar 

 case. The reader may imagine the difficulty, when, 

 while such operations usually occupy only two or three 

 minutes, I was fully five and twenty minutes engag-, 

 ed in loosening with the fingers of both hands the 

 stone, which had upwards of twenty points, every one of 

 which resembled "a thick apple-stalk, half-an-inch long. 

 The size of the calculus, however, did not surpass 

 that of a hen's egg, and it was as white as crystallized 



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